What they don't tell you

Yeah, yeah, I've got the whole cliche thing happening. My kids are my life's blood, so to speak. I revel in their success, hurt when they hurt, and have an everlasting desire to bite their soft fatty parts while yelling "Mama's hoooongry". But no one told me, no one said, "Hey, this is really really damn hard." And not in the kind of hard that if you just work a little faster, get up a little earlier, or push a little more you will succeed. But in the kind of hard that every day (while you succeed in ways you could never imagine) you fail miserably and fall harder than you could ever think possible. And failing means so much more.
No one ever said that, and on a regular basis mind you, you will be covered in goo, be awakened by an ever spreading warm patch leaking from a diaper, and develop strange and lingering pains from lugging bags, hefting strollers, carrying evergrowing children, and performing feats of gymanstics fit for Cirque Du Soliel simply trying to keep your sticky little cherubs safe.
No one ever said, you will never sleep again. Okay, okay, you sleep...kind of. First dozing off until they need their next feeding or their chaffing nappy wakes them. Then in fits and starts, in pure exhaustion, handing off your precious bundle to the willing arms of a Grandma or Dad. Then when they are finally sleeping through the night (and I hear they do eventually sleep through the night) you go from your previous nonparent sleeping patterns of semi-comatose drooling on your pillow while dreaming that Brad Pitt is, well Brad Pitt, to your new found parenthood sleeping patterns of one eye open, dreaming that Brad Pitt is, well changing the baby's diaper. Like Superman's ability to leap a building in a single bound, you can go from sleeping to wide awake and on your feet at the sound of a troublesome cough, a whimper, or even the sound the door makes when you know a burgalar has come to steal your baby monitor.
No one ever said any of this to me, and I think I know why. Kids are magic. They are. How do I know this? Because they can make exotic worlds appear by will, can push their faces in a pillow and you CAN'T see them, and turn a blanket into a tent just by thinking it is so. Not only that, but (here is the clincher) they can make you forget. Yep, and those of you who are parents may not remember these happenings, but all they have to do is give you a kiss and say something magical like, "I love you more than chocolate." Then all of the screaming, crying, and pounding on the floor that they or, let's face it, you did melts away into the ether. Gone just like that. And the magic is long term. Just ask any parent of grown children about when their kids were babies. They'll tell you how beautiful they were, maybe about their first word or first steps. They may acknowledge that it was difficult, but they won't remember. Either that or they just won't tell you.